issues is that homelessness and how we can combat it and fight it here in the state. >> i am the executive director of the alaskan council of school administrators. from our perspective the most important thing in alaska is to get a long-term sustainable fiscal plan in place which has -- for our state which has ongoing revenue outside of the nonrenewable resources. and really primarily because we need to stabilize education across the state. our educators need to feel that their funding, which is a constitutional duty in alaska, is stable, so they can stabilize their schools, and most important i think for all of us, is to educate our students, and the best way to do that is a stable school. announcer 1: be sure to join us july 21 and 22nd when we feature our visit to alaska. watch alaska weekend on c-span, c-span.org, and listen on the

free radio app. reverend martin luther king jr. organized the 1960 84 people's campaign to people's1968 poor campaign. the campaign went on with a six week encampment on the national mall they called resurrections eddie. the national exam of african-american history and culture and the museum of american history opens an exhibit this year to look back 50 years to the poor people's campaign. a panel of civil rights activists and smithsonian museum staff look at it impact and legacy. this is about an hour. >> our pleasure to welcome you to this media event for city of hope. you are in for a wonderful discussion from some brilliant people. my name, because they told me it so, is kinshasha holman conwill,

and it is my pleasure to be the deputy director of the national museum of african american history and culture. we are going to get started in a moment. but i want you to know who these lovely young men are up here. they are both named marc. marc morial distinguished , president of the national urban league, and marc steiner, who is a brilliant journalist and a former and current activist in social justice. you will hear a lot more from them later, and they will be joined by some other folks who you will see shortly. but to get us started and before you hear from director bunch, i would like to bring to the podium one of my favorite people at the smithsonian. he is a distinguished leader of this institution. and his official title is the elizabeth mcmillan director of the smithsonian's national

museum of american history. he is part of our top collaborators in the work that we do, particularly with the exhibition space we have at the american museum, john. [applause] john: good morning, and it is a pleasure to welcome all of you to your national museum of american history. i would say if ever there is a time in america when we need historic understanding as well that present history in ways in which people can understand the role of democracy it is today, and the show you will be discussing is a prime example of that as we at this museum have a major show on american democracy. one of the key components is the way citizens can participate in our nation. and one of the key ways of doing that is through protest. honoring protest and

understanding protest in the context of the larger arc of american history is very important. i would also say we have been honored and privileged to have our wonderful neighbor for so long in this building providing extraordinary shows. it has also been an honor to watch the development of the museum next door. and working with them and understanding ways in which american history is presented that includes all of us over the arc of our history is fundamentally important to where we are going in the future. and so for that we really thank lonnie and his whole team enormous for what they have done, what they have taught us, and i would say most importantly what we are all going to do together to help us understand who we are, why we are here, and where we are going.

thank you all very, very much. [applause] kinshasha: john, thank you. i am happy to report we have been joined by peter allen, who you will be hearing from later. welcome, peter. and as promised, one of the folks who makes all that we do possible is our founding director. he is kind of our north star. lonnie bunch, who you have heard a little bit over the years, he is a veteran of the smithsonian institution, former director of the chicago history museum. but for over 13 years, he has done the work to lead with his vision the creation of the national museum of african american history and culture. and he has traveled the country wide and the world gathering artifacts, making friends,

raising a lot of money, and getting a wonderful team of colleagues, some of whom are with us today. and we would not be in this situation of having a museum that has been called a gift to america without his leadership. please join me in welcoming the founding director of the 19th as newest museum, lonnie bunch. [applause] lonnie: good morning, everybody. >> good morning. lonnie: i am so pleased that you are here. i am pleased because this is an important moment for us, for the smithsonian, for the city of washington. thank you for being with us for this media briefing on our newest exhibit, the city of hope . let me first of all thank kinshasha for the leadership she

has given for more than a decade in helping shape the museum. i also want to acknowledge the partnership we have had with john gray. the museum of american history has been our closest collaborator and one of our most important partners. and i think that, just like any exhibition we have ever done, it it is made better by the touch of american history. so john thank you very much for , your involvement. i am so pleased to have our special guests here, to have marc morial, marc steiner and peter here, who will share their perspectives on this important story later. thank you for being with us. you know in 2018, there will be so much attention and discourse and rightly so about the 50th anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king jr. at the national museum of african american history and culture, we decided to acknowledge that moment not by focusing on king's death but helping the public remember his legacy and the issues, some of unmet, that he

challenged america to address. while many celebrate king's leadership celebrate his -- for the battle for a just for racial justice, and his last campaign, the struggle for economic justice, is often undervalued and less understood. when recalling resurrection city, people often remember the rain and the mud, but not the meaning. they remember the brief duration of 43 days, when resurrection city was populated, but not its long-term impact. and often people think that after resurrection city, the war on poverty was won. but to understand the poor people's campaign, it is essential to remember the calamitous year of 1968. 1968 was the year when all of the pain, all the violence, all the hatchery -- hatred, all the fragmentation, and all the hope of the 1960's seemed to combust. america was volatile and fragile with great political, racial,

and generational chasms over the over the long, hot summers of urban unrest, the murder of dr. king, and later the murder of robert kennedy. but out of this pain and uncertainty emerged the poor people's campaign. a campaign shaped by both hurt and hope. it sought to find a way to a multi-racial collaboration, to alleviate the poverty that defined too many communities. this exhibition allows us to appreciate the planning, the sacrifices, and the commitment to fulfilling dr. king's dream at the heart of the poor that was people's campaign. it also repositions dr. ralph abernathy as an effective leader of the post king civil rights movement. while it is clear resurrection city did not end poverty, it did help focus america's attention

on the vast and diverse array of americans trapped by poverty. by examining the six-week encampment on the national mall, candidly it is hard not to see the contemporary residents of the poor people's campaign. after all the mall has been the sight of so many moments where people have demanded a change in america. african-americans have used this bully pulpit of expanse of land from the lincoln memorial to the capital to demand equality from marian anderson in 1939, to the march on washington in 1963, to the poor people's campaign, to the million man march. it has become sacred space to ask america to change. the images and the artifacts within this exhibition are reminders that despite the economic growth and prosperity that has shaped this nation since 1968, there are still millions of americans without

access to the american dream of economic opportunity. we hope this exhibition encourages visitors to re-examine dr. king as somebody who demanded an america where economic opportunity would accompany demand for equal political and social rights. one of the strengths of the poor people's campaign was this ability to bring together people of many different backgrounds latino, white american, black american, who shared one common thing, they shared an understanding of the pain of poverty. and they shared an understanding of using that diverse coalition to prod, to push, to demand that america live up to the promise of the constitution and the declaration. in essence, like dr. king, they dreamed of an america that not yet existed. but they were willing to sacrifice so much to make it so.

ultimately, this exhibition posits that average citizens can help america to be made better, can help america to live up to our stated ideals, and that the best way to honor the ultimate sacrifice of dr. king is to cross those boundaries that divide, boundaries of race, gender, ethnicity, to demand a fairer and freer america. thank you very much for being with us this morning. [applause] kinshasha: thanks so much, lonnie. i would also like to ask if eric -- the who is the eric curator of the exhibition, could join us in the seats up here. and after that terrific framing of -- no, we want you up here, my love. [laughter] kinshasha: yes because you are the curator. what the heck? as our brilliant aaron is

getting situated, i want to remind everyone that we are live streaming today's event. and that the hashtag -- i know lonnie wants to know this, particularly being a twitter-er, that it is #cityofhope. and you can go to our twitter feed. you can go and find the exact link because the letters that my brilliant colleague sent me are much too small for me to see. after the http, i am lost. but #cityofhope. and surely if you search that on twitter, you will find the brilliant tweets they have already done. we are going to start with some questions of the panelists that i am going to raise. and then we are going to follow with questions from you. so please be ready because it won't be long. i am going to start with marc morial. marc morial is not only the distinguished president of the national urban league, the largest civil rights organization in this country, and one of the oldest organizations, he is also the

former mayor of new orleans, and he is only 25 years old. it is amazing. [laughter] kinshasha: but marc, tell us, the role of major civil rights organizations like the urban league, the naacp, the legal clc, the powersl behind this day. these days are important. but tell us a little bit about the role of those national organizations in galvanizing people for action, and what that looks like today, marc? marc m.: morning. -- thank you very much. good morning. happy new year. and i do apologize and i will have to excuse myself at about 9:29. because i have got to catch a 10:00 train to philadelphia to make another presentation at noon. thank you for allowing me to go first. this is what is important reflecting back 50 years. the historic civil rights

organizations, the historic civil rights organizations, the naacp, the national urban league, the southern christian leadership conference, the naacp legal defense fund, national council of the group -- negro women were united in the 1960's to do things. the march on washington, as an example. and while more is made of differences, the historical record demonstrates that these organizations worked together in -- and in unison, even with some spirited debate about whether the best tactics, and there was a debate with litigation or whether the best tactics was direct action and protest, or whether the best actions were later on a more militant and strident approach that was championed by many young people. what is striking to me about 1968 and about this campaign is

how meaningful the economic bill of rights that was published by the poor people's campaign is today. they published a bill of rights, and i am going to read it because i think this is the heart of why i believe that in many respects, what this ought to be about is we now must pick up the baton of the 1968 poor people's campaign, and run anew. the first bill of right was meaningful job at a living wage. the second was secure an adequate income for those who cannot find a job or do a job. access to land for economic uses. access to capital for poor people and minorities to promote their own businesses.

ability for ordinary people to play a truly significant role in the government. this poor people's campaign, which was really an iteration by martin luther king to do a number of things, one, to pivot and expand to a focus on economic justice and economic rights in a very determined way. understanding that the 1964 civil rights act and the 1965 voting rights act were important tools and pillars, but that they were missing dynamics in how people's quality of life could be improved. the second thing that was very determined about this poor people's campaign is that it was multicultural, multiracial. there was an intentional effort to meld together, and this was 1968, poor whites, latinos, and african-americans in a

concerted, visible effort to push this economic bill of rights. and today, where historic civil rights organizations are, we continue to carry the banner in many respects on many, many fronts. we are now extremely active, not only in litigation and direct action, but many of us are active in a very, very concerted way around impacting public policy. whether it is in the congress, or at the agencies, the state city -- the state capitals or at the city halls, county halls, municipal courts, we are active in ways that do not always make front-page news. they do not always generate a conversation on cable political news. but in many ways, we remain the sustainable, reliable,

consistent infrastructure that continues to fight, i think, for the vision, not only of martin luther king but a philip randolph and whitney young, john lewis, roy wilkins, thurgood marshall, and malcolm x, and others, many of the great leaders, who championed civil rights, human rights, and economic justice in the 1960's. we are the inheritors and legatees of that. and we work every day to see how we can push it. today, there has to be a renewed effort to help poor white people, poor black people, poor latinos, working whites, working blacks, and working latinos, that they have more in common when it comes to economic issues than in division with each other. in today's america, culture and

race -- culture, sometimes as a code word for race -- has divided the body politic, which means that something so simple, like raising the minimum wage, or pushing the country toward a living wage, cannot find the light of day here in the congress of the united states. but 20 plus states have said, forget the congress, forget the president, we will do it on our own. so simple, important things cannot get done because politics , the politics of race, the politics of culture gets in the way. i will say that at the national urban league and the urban league movement, we have always had a distinct focus on economic issues, a distinct focus. we put tremendous effort into trying to derail this recently-passed tax bill. a tremendous effort into trying

to help people understand why the country could do better, and why the problems of economic disparities are real. i will stop with this. two years ago, 2016, we did the 40th anniversary report of the state of black america. gave us a chance to take an introspective look at really how far we had come. the truth is is that the country from 1963 toogress 1976 and 1978 when it comes to the reduction of poverty and the improvement of living conditions for people at the bottom of the economic ladder. since 1976, relative economic disparities have not changed much. the distance in income, home

ownership, the stagnation of wages. since 2000 in this country, the average working american in the bottom 80% has seen about a 10% to 15% pay cut because their wages are not keeping up with inflation. that is the here, that is a now. -- the now. we have an opportunity. i amasha: mr. morial, going to have to interrupt you. marc: last thing. because i will have to excuse myself. kinshasha: ok. marc m.: i will say this. our challenge is not to make 1968 a year of nostalgia, year where we look back at all we do is reflect. and we say what might have been. but to use this time to renew the commitment to economic justice in poor people. kinshasha: marc morial, thank you very much. [applause] kinshasha: my next question is going to be to reader adelman. he is -- peter edelman, he is no

stranger to the movement for social justice. indeed, he has dedicated his life to same. as i talk, please fill in the remaining seats, folks who are waiting to get in. there are seats particularly in the front row. don't be shy. we want you. just duck under the cameras when you come in, if you will. peter is an american lawyer, policymaker, and law professor at georgetown university. one of the reasons we are so delighted to have him with us today is he was an active witness and part of the movement, the moment that brought us to resurrection city and the poor people's campaign. a former justice department official and also a member of the staff of senator robert f. kennedy, whose tour of the mississippi delta with his then friend and later wife marian wright, now marian wright edelman, was a pivotal part of what led us to resurrection city. peter, tell us a little bit

about the genesis of that moment. and bring us a little back to the time because of course we do not want to be awash in nostalgia, but history counts in history matters. take us back, and give us a little sense of what that meant. peter: well, thank you very much. first of all, i want to say thank you very much to lonnie bunch and jackie, my dear friend, and everyone associated with this. it is so important. it is important to us and our family in a personal way. justing this back now is vital and so important for our country. so, thank you to everybody who made this happen today. yes, i am a little bit like zoellick in this story, if you remember woody allen. it is true, as you say, that we

met -- had metve in mississippi earlier in 1957, and that did end at that stage of our lives by getting married. we are coming to 50 years later this year. in a is 50 years for us very personal way. but the relevance to our conversation today is that marion had gotten to the quite friendly with robert kennedy, as well as with me. they liked each other a lot. robert kennedy had very good taste in the people he chose, who he respected. inone day, i believe it was october, although in your research you will know exactly when it was -- came out, was in town. he said why didn't marion and i come out to his house for lunch,

which we did. lunch, he end of said, if you don't mind, i would like to take a slim in the pool and then we can all go back to work. he was in the pool and the two of us were sitting on the side and he said to mary and, -- he said to marian, where are you going when you go from here? and she said, well, i'm going down to see dr. king. and i and others will be talking with him about what we should do next. and they were searching. , as iwere difficult times think we all know, in terms of dr. king hadand taken the movement north earlier and outside of chicago and that

was difficult. it was very clear going back to the march in 1963 that the issues had to go from the question of rights to the question of what you can do with that right, and primarily whether people would have jobs, good jobs, that they would be able to support their families and be part of the american dream. but the question was, what next? marian said to him, do you have any thoughts? and robert kennedy said, well yeah, actually. i think what you ought to do is bring people to washington to stay, and to stay, and to keep on staying until people in washington get sick of it and decide to do the right thing.

now, you know, thinking back about that, there were some other possibilities that people said. in any case, that was the thought, that it would be such a great statement of the needs with regard to poverty and poverty and race connected. and so marian took that to dr. involved inrybody the celc, and that is how the poor people's campaign started. kinshasha: you are so modest. you played a little role in this, i believe. [laughter] kinshasha: give us two or three words on what maybe you did? i know you have still got the love story of the century, but come on, let's give it up a little bit, about your role in

particular. peter: well, i was of course working for robert kennedy, so my role was to be on his staff. as one of his legislative assistants. it changed my life. it changed my life to get alsoed to marian, but it did change in the same direction having worked with robert kennedy because i had the opportunity to go with him, and i think everyone knows the way he learned. and he had to touch things, he had to hear from people. he had to see people. read and all the other ways that we learn. but he went to places that ,nited states senators didn't even most often senators from

the same state, their own state, did not go out to see low income people, whether it was in cities or especially in rural areas. so i learned from that and it changed my life, because i have been working on those issues ever since then. in one way or another. is that enough? kinshasha: much better. thank you, peter. our second marc, but the first marc that i saw today, and a great guy. mark steiner is the founding president and ceo of the center for emerging media. but before he had gray hair, he was an important activist, his oral history is upstairs in the exhibition. and he had a particular role in working with white folks from appalachia, an important part of the multiracial, multigenerational coalition that led to the poor people's campaign. bring us back to those times and tell us a little bit about your role and why you are still such an activist today. : welcome to you all

here. i am happy to be a part of this exhibit. thank you for asking me to come down today. in 1968, i was 22 and had been connected with a group called the young patriots of chicago. the union forof jobs and income now, which was a series of organizing projects across the united states then. the founding mother of that movement was a woman named peggy terry. her story was brought to light and she was interviewed numerous times. peggy came from a ku klux klan family. she had been a member of the klan. her son, doug youngblood, who served six years in prison for murder for manslaughter, was also a member of the klan. and he became the founder of the young patriots.

and who were the young patriots? chicago, you know, was a place people from the south, alabama, mississippi, came north to , whether you were white or black. you came from mississippi, alabama, you went to chicago. and so most of the white folks from the mountains of tennessee, mountains of alabama, mountains of mississippi, ended up in chicago in a neighborhood called uptown. uptown was a poor white ghetto. there was a gang in that neighborhood called the goodfellows. gang of street kids. they were organized by youngblood and peggy and others. a guy who was here the other week, who was one of the last remaining young patriots in the country.

therm, his twin brother was low therm. everybody had to have a street name. at any rate, they started a free clinic, like the panthers did. they were part of the original rainbow coalition the black panthers, the young lords, the brown berets, in chicago. and they formed a group that really got the establishment, mayor daley, very upset, because it was a coming together of poor communities across racial lines. very quickly, to give you a sense of what that means and what it meant to be living in resurrection city. there was a meeting place in chicago where a number of panthers were there. bobby lee was one of them. who was actually the person who founded the rainbow coalition. it was his idea. hampton picked it up and said, this is a great idea, but bobby lee was the one who started it, and he just passed away. they were in this meeting with

folks from the south, white people, in uptown. they were talking about how we had to stand together against police brutality and end the slums and fight these landlords and have decent schools and more. and i remember this older white guy in the back of the room stand up. and he said -- i'm not going to use the word -- but he said, if that is what them n's are doing, i'm marching with them. and bobby lee and the panthers' reaction to him using the word and standing up and saying that was to walk over and hugged him. that's right, brother, we are walking together. after a while, the man learned that was not the word to use and his consciousness was raised. so this whole battle around poor whites and poor blacks in that period was about changing consciousness, fighting and struggling together, and it really just changed a lot.

so they came down from chicago to resurrection city. one of the things that marc morreale was pointing out, i want to add two things. a lot of demands were made from the poor people's campaign. it is important to remember some of them because they are relevant to 2018. this is 1968. and one of those demands was $35 in 1968 -- dollars -- to end poverty in america every year. they also were demanding half a million new houses a year to be built in america so that every slum was torn down. in those days, we used the word slum. and so until every slum was gone, a half-million houses a year would have to be built. those are some of the demands. the land to man's marc talked about referred to appalachia, seven farmers in mississippi, alabama, and georgia, and chicago farmers in the southwest

united states demanding land. for themselves, land that was stolen. so those were all really important. so we had this encampment there. peggy terry was there, youngblood was there, people came up from chicago. i was already living in d.c. i was at the time working with them, back and forth from chicago, but i was also helping start the liberation news service, working with the washington free press. so i was in the middle of stuff in d.c. as well. and that encampment actually had the confederate flag flying in the poor white and cap meant -- poor white in cap meant -- poor white incampment from uptown. one of the symbols on the jackets of the young patriots was the confederate flag. very different time and perception of what that meant. and they used it as a way to teach other poor white folks

what racism was about and what that flag, but how it could also be a flag of rebellion for change. so it was interesting, the way people looked at it then and how it was used at that moment. people got really sick in that camp. because they got sick, i guess they stopped in dayton. they said that the food was poisoned along the way and many of them were safe during the .ood part of the encampment the good thing was there was a lot of tension inside of the camp, and a lot of love inside of that camp. they are clearly were -- as high erm told in his story last week at the museum -- he told the gang about how members were paid by the police to disrupt the camp. you could tell the tension was there because there were gang members with the campaign and

gang members who watched with perimeter, and those who were causing trouble all the time in the camp. so the tension was there. and there was tension inside the camp between activists who lived in the mud, in the huts, as we did, and people who stayed in the hotel. and then we actually marched into the hotel one day while jesse jackson and others were eating at the dining room table, and we were sitting in the mud eating out of the pots. and we didn't like that. so we had a conversation about what that meant for the future of the campaign. let me just close with this -- remember what king wanted to do for this? this was his idea. he wanted this to happen. he believed in a multiracial army of the poor. he believed in a black-led movement. and he wanted to disrupt -- he wanted people to be in d.c. to disrupt washington, d.c., 24 hours a day, civil disobedience, to change the nature of america. this is what he wanted when he died. when he was assassinated, the mantle was picked up. to me, it was one of the most

important moments in our history that we have forgotten, is resurrection city and what it meant to be inside that city. and i will close with this. the last day in that city, those of us who were left were attacked by the police with bulldozers and tear gas. and they tore into the camp and tore it down, and people fled , many people were arrested. and that was the day i will never forget. i can still feel and taste the tear gas and helping this mother and two children get out of the camp so they would not be hurt by the tear gas. it was a very intense moment. talking about bobby kennedy -- i will never forget that day, when bobby kennedy's body went past the camp and stopped and everybody moved. thousands of people came to when histhat moment body, when the casket stopped

and the train stopped, and people spontaneously begin singing "the battle hymm of the republic" as his body passed. that was huge. because he, at that moment, even though i didn't believe it, looking at it now, i realize that bobby kennedy was a man who changed dramatically as a human being, as a politician in this country. i didn't understand that then. then, he was just one of those establishment figures that we wanted to do and not think about that. but in retrospect, i understand who he was, what he meant at that moment, and why so many people were crying and singing when his casket passed the camp. so, i will leave it there. kinshasa: marc, thank you. this is living history, ladies and gentlemen. before i give lonnie the last word, i want to introduce you again to aaron bryant, our curator of visual culture and photographer at the museum. he is the brilliant young man who created this exhibition.

i want to say just a word about the difference of when you put history exhibition through the lens of visual culture. then i will ask lonnie about one -- about ambiguity, one of his favorite subjects. ok. i still want to ask you this question about ambiguity. they don't know it. it is a question from me, come on. how about you answer that first? [laughter] kinshasha: all right. aaron bryant. sorry, one other thing, folks. i was wrong. hopeashtag is city of 1968. a visual culture exhibition. when you walk through the gallery, you will notice a lot of photographs, graphics from protest signs. and a couple of other things you really want to pay attention to are the media pieces. outside the gallery space, we discovered hearst footage of the entire campaign essentially where hearst followed the

caravans coming from memphis, right after -- and also, they recorded the king memorial service and then followed the caravan all the way from memphis, which really started the campaign, all the way up to the evacuation of resurrection city and its inevitable -- resurrection city and then its inevitable demolition. this is incredible footage we found. it has never been seen before. we are presenting it for the very first time here in this exhibition. we also have surveillance media that we are presenting. and that has been seen only by a select few people, but we are presenting it publicly for the first time. we also have a number of photographers who we are presenting, robert houston, who is here in the audience. [applause] aaron: we also have laura jones, who is right here in the front row. she is a photographer we are presenting. [applause]

aaron: as well as photographs by roland freeman, joe friedman, ron comedy, and claire watkins. i will say with the claire watkins photographs, these are also new discoveries. we found about 1600 frames of photographs of caravans coming to resurrection city. and life at resurrection city that had not been seen before. we found these negatives that were here at the smithsonian. the smithsonian archives have them. when they heard about this exhibition, they called and asked if we would like to have the negatives transferred to our collection. and of course, we said yes. the other thing to pay attention to with the exhibition is -- would be all of the color. generally with civil rights exhibitions, we are accustomed to seeing photographs and media images in black and white. but what we are doing, which is think is pretty innovative, is showing the civil rights movement, particularly one that

honors the memory of king's life and memory, we are showing them images that are in color. that is pretty extraordinary. i have been doing this work for a long time. i have been studying civil writes images for a long time, and it is rare to see so much color in an exhibition. i think it also speaks to the importance of visual culture, particularly at this time in our nations history. 1968 was such a transformative period and i think the visual culture reflects that. kinshasha: thank you. thank you all panelists. a couple of other people who are yayden, the lead architect for resurrection city. and one of the young folks who helped out at that day. i am going to open the floor for questions. state your name, where you are from, and if you want to direct your question to a particular panelist, please do so.

yes, please. cracks -- >> [inaudible] i need a microphone. i am allison keyes from smithsonian magazine. i am wondering what you guys think -- in 1968, there was poverty. change from now, right. i'm wondering what you think should happen going forward? as the legacy of this campaign happens, as king's birthday approaches, what do you think should happen now? >> the first thing i think we need to understand is that with everything we are hearing from some elected officials and others, i guess we are in a place where we don't talk about political parties. we are hearing all the time that the things we have done about poverty in our country have failed. and that we need to get rid of all of them and people would be better off.

this, of course, is totally wrong. the thing we do not understand, i would say, as thoughtful people in our country, is that we have made a great deal of things, policies, that make a huge difference. first of all, in the 1960's, poverty was cut in half. in 1959, we had 22% of our people living in poverty. by 1973, it was 11%. the number of reasons for that, the civil rights movement was one of the major reasons in that. african-american poverty went down from 55% in 1959 to 32% in 1973. now, it is still not acceptable, but now it is about 23%.

so we've been making a difference. the policies we have, the programs we have, whether it is social security, snap, food stamps, earned income tax credit, housing vouchers, a whole series of things -- the fact is we would have -- and i mean fact -- twice as many people in poverty, around 90 million people, as opposed to the 43% who we deem as poor right now. we should be shouting that from the mountain tops. these programs, these policies these people want to cut into or get rid of our making a tremendous difference in the lives of people in a country. we really need to say that over and over and over. what do we do know?

number one, we fight back for what is going on. that is absolutely what we have to do. the fact that we still have 43 million people who are poor, there's some reasons for that. yes, we could have done more in terms of public policy. but the fact is, it is a changed economy. we don't have the good jobs that were there through -- after world war ii, the end of the the deindustrialization of our 1970's. country has left us -- we are a low-wage nation. nobody in our leadership, except some individual people who we could call out, are really addressing that. there is a long list of things that we need to do. we need to end mass incarceration, we need to improve our education, we need to have affordable housing, a long list of things that need to be there. but the absolute heart of it is

jobs, just as it was in 1963, just as it was in 1968. jobs that get people a decent income. that is the heart of it. now, how do we do that is a big question. i will just say that it's a complicated thing. it means we have to have different politics. it means that we need to have people across lines of race, ethnicity, young and old, women and men, who are demanding a different kind of approach to all of these things, for all of us. and when we can do that and have different people who are the public officials and a different position that we have as a nation, all of us, then we will get to fulfilling the dream that dr. king and everyone else had at the time.

kinshasha: thank you. we are going to just have time for a few questions. we have one person at the mic over here. if anyone wants to step to that mic. then we are going to wrap up because our curators will be giving a tour. there will be an opportunity for media to do individual interviews, which our staff will help facilitate. yes, sir? >> very briefly. my name is melvin hardy from the district. how do we, as small civil society groups, lever this important exhibition to do better coalition building across the american narrative, across the geographies that are american? and how do we support you in this work? >> that's a very tough question. [laughter] to do it in three minutes or less. kinshasha: much less. let's try 30 seconds. if you're lucky.

>> i can do that in 30 seconds. the difference between now and 1968 is there was an identifiable mass movement that people across the board identified with. the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement both gave birth, especially the rights movement, to other movements. there was something for people to coalesce around. we don't really have that at the moment. i think it is going to take a lot of hard work from small groups all over the country to pull that together in their localities and build that up. i think about that a lot, even where america is today. i think we are facing -- in some ways, we still defined poverty the way we did in 1964. poverty is very different in 2018, in terms of how we define it. it is much broader than most think it is. i also think it is very hard to

organize this because poverty in america today, i think, is worse than it was in 1968. and i say that very quickly. what i mean by that. i grew up in the city. i grew up in a poor working-class neighborhood. it was a tough neighborhood. there were fights. things happened on the corner all the time. just the nature of that. but there were no abandoned houses. almost everybody had a job, even if it was a job that paid low wages, really low wages. people worked. families were in those houses. it was a cohesive community. now you have people feeling completely abandoned in communities that are boarded up. where there are no recreation centers. where there is no chance of a decent job. kinshasha: i'm going to interrupt you because we are going to have marc steiner and

marian edelman and other brilliant people in our public programming later. so before this becomes that public program and to entice you to come back for that at our museum, i will make lonnie, beg him, to answer a question around that. but also, why an exhibition like this, in a history museum, is important? lonnie: i think the most important thing to realize is that history is as much about today and tomorrow as it is about yesterday. what i think museums do, especially museums like the smithsonian, our job is one, to help you remember. to remember these stories, to remember this history. but not out of nostalgia, but to give you a useful history. so that in essence, it is to inspire, to challenge, to remind us of what is possible. and so for me, an exhibition like this is really a wonderful time to thank those who were involved, but even more importantly, it is a stepping

stone to say the great strength of america have been the people that have challenged, that have prodded, that have demanded it live up to its stated ideals. we hope exhibitions like this remind us all that we have a responsibility to help america be america. kinshasha: thank you, lonnie. this will be the very last. as a gen xion -- er, building on what you said, mr. bunch, not to remember about to learn and discover. someone who didn't experience that time period when i was in my 20's learning at howard, i became aware of the poor people's campaign. i question how many people really know the history of martin luther king and even in a tweet king center print out. that the we need to get out the martin luther king light. also as a gen xer, the thing i think our generation did was take what was past and build on

it or flip the script. i would like to imagine, at this time, if martin luther king did not live the whole continuum, if he came here now, how he would rework his dream, how he would flip the script? any insight you can offer about things we can study about what his perspective was then, or people who may be lifted, or historians who have perspective, and at even a reality that we can get rid of the power? -- the poor? poorse jesus said, "the you will have with you always." >> because it is a reality -- there was a time you thought you could not get rid of slavery. there was a time you never

thought segregation would end. those were bigger than the ones we face today. us is, what history tells each generation needs us to take that history, reframe it, draw it as a meansse to challenge. no one is saying looking back at the past gives you the five steps to the promised land, but what looking back to the past does, it tells you it is possible to find that promised land, but you have to figure out today what works best. i could see king now tweeting his way. [laughter] a lot of things we would not have imagined. but i think the goal is to make sure there is a baseline of information. let me give you the commercial for museums. museums are one of the few places where people, especially americans, trust. it is one of the few places that will give you relatively unfurnished truth. gift.to me, is such a you can take that unvarnished truth and interpreted in ways

you want, but it is there for you. that's why a place like the smithsonian is so important. you will remember that expression. i want you to join me in thanking peter adelman, aaron bryant, lonnie bunch . >> on c-span3's american history tv, we are also taking .our questions and comments the question is, which party changed the most since 1968? the vote right now with more than 24,000 casting their votes, saying the democrats changed the most. 56%, the republicans that 44%. >> thank you to everyone who voted in twitter polls on 1968, america in turmoil. more than 200,000 votes were posted on issues ranging from the vietnam war to the presidential election, to women's rights, and race relations.

you can tweet questions and comments during live events, cvo previews of upcoming programs, or look back to what happened on this day in american history on @cspanhistory. announcer: american history tv is on c-span3 every weekend featuring history and programs on the presidency, the civil war, and more. here sacred from a recent program. -- here is a clip from a recent program. >> everything was occupied. my friend said, get back into that room and stay there, and i will try to move you have this evening, because these guys are here to stay. it would not be good for either one of us if they find you here. day for a long, long him to come back. he did about 6:00. >> i just want to pause really

quickly and get your perspective. where is this power plant? >> right in the middle of town. me -- heack and take worked out a signal. he gave me a signal across the courtyard again. the soldiers were on one end cooking dinner. but theyainly saw me, must have assumed it was a frenchman working at the power plant. they did not bother me. i went across the courtyard and went to the plant. then my friend led me over backyard fences, down the road a few houses to the road of these french priests who had been in vietnam for a long time. they had agreed to take me in. they did. they gave me the black gown and

the beads, the whole priestly outfit. for the next nine days, i was a french priest behind the north vietnamese lines. four in east tennessee hillbilly who grew up in the church of christ himself, this was a major adventure. announcer: you can watch this and other american history programs on our website, where all of our video is archived. that is c-span.org/history. >> this language of attack, of harm, damage, that by expressing an opinion that people don't like, you have inflicted an injury. i found that very striking, and frankly, rather frightening, if the truth be told, and quite emblematic of the way the left is now responding to any sort of

dissent, and especially one that trenches on identity grievance politics, which of course is everywhere and has affected everything. announcer: university of pennsylvania law school professor amy wax on the limits of free expression on college campuses in the united states tonight at 8:00 eastern on &a."an's "q former philadelphia mayor frank whiteand the working-class voters of the 1970's is the topic of the interview coming up next. american history tv was at the organization of american historians annual meeting in sacramento, california, where we spoke with professor timothy lombardo. he compares pennsylvania politics in the 1970's to today's political climate. this is about 20 minutes.